iWorld
Entertainer’s Cricket League targets 400 crore valuation in first season
Mumbai: The Entertainer’s Cricket League, the first of its kind social media celebrity-based cricketing league is expected to generate a revenue of over 30 crores in the first season alone. League founders, Anil Kumar and Himanshu Chandnani have rounded up an elite set of captains including Abhishek Malhan, Sonu Sharma, Elvish Yadav, Harsh Beniwal, Munawar Faruqui and Anurag Dwivedi who will pick their own team to compete in this T10 cricket league.
“The Entertainer’s Cricket League presents a unique opportunity for corporates and brands as it opens them up to the world of Influencer marketing, the fastest-growing vertical in the marketing industry. Not only does this give them direct access to an individual team’s 15 social media celebrities but also broader access to the wider pool of talent that they can associate with. It’s simple, this is a one-stop solution for any brand because they will have 150 creators under the same roof at the same time.” said Entertainer’s Cricket League founder Himanshu Chandnani.
The creators will each lead one of the six franchises with each team further picking in the form of the draft from a vast pool of 250 popular social media celebrities out of which 96 social media celebrities will make the final cut. These will include popular creators across multiple industries such as technology, finance, infotainment, education, motivation & self-help, and entertainment including vloggers, gaming, fashion and lifestyle from India. The Entertainer’s Cricket League will turn out to be the ultimate experience for content lovers across the country.
“We are excited to be a part of this huge amalgamation between cricket and culture and are backing our initial aim of building an inclusive community for all kinds of social media celebrities. We look forward to the first step in what will definitely prove to be a legacy league in India and revolutionize the way brands and corporations can optimize their marketing strategies. With the launch of the ECL, we aim to make the community of social media celebrities more accessible for corporations and on the flipside also give smaller celebrities creative and monetary opportunities.” Entertainer’s Cricket League founder Anil Kumar signed off.
ECL is currently in the process of finalizing broadcasting rights with an undisclosed broadcaster which will only elevate the scale on which this league will reach almost an expected viewership of 100 crore. The league is expected to be played in the latter half of the year.
iWorld
Meta plans 8,000 layoffs in new AI-led restructuring wave
First phase from May 20 may cut 10 per cent workforce amid AI pivot.
MUMBAI: At Meta, the future may be artificial but the cuts are very real. The social media giant is reportedly preparing a fresh round of layoffs, with an initial wave expected to impact around 8,000 employees as it doubles down on its artificial intelligence ambitions. According to a Reuters report, the first phase of job cuts is slated to begin on May 20, targeting roughly 10 per cent of Meta’s global workforce. With nearly 79,000 employees on its rolls as of December 31, the move marks one of the company’s most significant workforce reductions in recent years.
And this may only be the beginning. Sources indicate that additional layoffs are being planned for the second half of the year, although the scale and timing remain fluid, likely to be shaped by how Meta’s AI capabilities evolve in the coming months. Earlier reports had suggested that total cuts in 2026 could reach 20 per cent or more of its workforce.
The restructuring comes as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg continues to steer the company towards an AI-first operating model, committing hundreds of billions of dollars to the transition. Internally, this shift is already visible: teams within Reality Labs have been reorganised, engineers have been moved into a newly formed Applied AI unit, and a Meta Small Business division has been created to align with broader structural changes.
The trend is hardly isolated. Across the tech sector, companies are trimming headcount while investing aggressively in automation. Amazon, for instance, has reportedly cut around 30,000 corporate roles nearly 10 per cent of its white-collar workforce citing efficiency gains driven by AI. Data from Layoffs.fyi shows over 73,000 tech employees have already lost jobs this year, compared with 153,000 in all of 2024.
For Meta, the move echoes its earlier “year of efficiency” in 2022–23, when about 21,000 roles were eliminated amid slowing growth and market pressures. This time, however, the backdrop is different. The company is financially stronger, generating over $200 billion in revenue and $60 billion in profit last year, with shares up 3.68 per cent year-to-date though still below last summer’s peak.
That contrast underlines the shift underway. These layoffs are less about survival and more about reinvention. As Meta restructures itself around AI from autonomous coding agents to advanced machine learning systems, the question is no longer whether the company will change, but how many roles will be left unchanged when it does.
